Our National Health Stories

The Cogency were the marketing consultants for Our National Health Stories, a unique collaboration between 19 NHS Trusts across England and a creative team led by Kwame Kwei-Armah, in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the NHS. The project culminated on 23 November with a day of performances in hospitals and a live show at Aviva Studios in Manchester. Our National Health Stories was funded by Arts Council England, NHS Charities Together and NHS England.

Our work included:

Establishment of social channels from scratch – with over 12,000 engagements and over 287,000 impressions – all organic in less than 5 months
Creating a suite of engaging visual content, including imagery and film to tell the stories of those involved with the project
Story mapping and implementing a live social media campaign on 23 November, that pooled content from 19 locations across the UK to create a stream of activity across social media, giving a of an unprecedented day of performances in hospitals
Planning and management of paid media spend
Managing creation and promoting of 2 x live streams (c.4000 views in 7 days)
Supporting dissemination of content and promotion with 19 trust partners and funders

In 2024, the project was nominated for a Royal Society for Public Health Health & Wellbeing Award in the Arts & Health category.

We continue to work with the National Arts in Hospitals Network (NAHN) who initiated the idea to launch their new UK-wide membership scheme, including developing a new brand and website.

Photos by Chris Payne